The European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) and the Institute for European Tort Law of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Graz (ETL) held a conference on Directors' and Officers' (D&O) Liability, as part of a study funded by the B&C Privatstiftung. The conference took place in Vienna on Tuesday, March 28, 2017.

In recent years several cases concerning the liability of directors and officers have courted controversy. Arguments raised in such discussions oscillate between two extremes: on the one hand, the need for governing bodies to give a space to entrepreneurial discretion and on the other hand to ensure the protection of investors in and creditors of a company from the consequences of disadvantageous decisions by those bodies.

The conference presented the results of an extensive comparative study on Directors' and Officers' Liability that was funded under the generous auspices of the B&C Privatstiftung and conducted by the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) and the Institute for European Tort Law of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Graz (ETL). In addition to country reports from six legal systems, special reports on the Economic Analysis of Law, Insurance and Private International Law perspective were also delivered, with ample opportunity reserved for discussion. A comparative report completed the programme.